On 12 September we visited the Otago Museum and the Dunedin Art Gallery. The purpose of these visits was to support our conceptual focus for this term which is "Past, Present and Future." Our first stop was at the museum where we enjoyed our three quarter hour visit to the planetarium. We learnt many interesting facts about our solar system and about how to identify various constellations. Another context we have been studying is "Ancient Civilisations" and we were fascinated to learn about the Egyptian tradition of mummification.
At the art gallery we discussed many aspects of life in Space. John told us stories about Matariki, taught us an action song, and how to play the theme to "Star Wars" on bells. We looked through some 3D glasses to see the world as an alien would see it and we listened to some "alien" communications. We then returned to the classroom to complete a stunning mural depicting assorted spacecraft and creatures.
It really was a very interesting and worthwhile trip and we look forward to continuing our studies on these topics back at school.
The topic we are studying at the moment is
Space. Our homework challenge for the last month has been to work with our
parents to make either a spacecraft, a space station, a satellite, or a model
of our solar system. The children did an amazing job and have produced some fantastic creations as can be seen in the photos below.
On 23 August, the Milton Area Schools Cross
Country was held at Tokoiti School. The track was a 2km course around their
school field and some neighbouring paddocks. The junior children had a much
smaller track of about half a kilometre. It was a nice sunny day and the
grounds weren’t muddy at all. The Years 3, 4, 5, and 6’s who finished in the
first five of their races got to go down to the South Otago champs in Clinton
on 23 August. After their race, the children were very puffed and hot with all
the effort they put in. There were heaps of parents and family members there to
watch their children. Every child should be very proud of themselves for
competing so well and congratulations to those who qualified for the South Otago champs.
On 1 August the Year 6 students
from Milton Primary joined students from all over the Clutha district at the
recreation centre in Balclutha for the Clutha Clued Up Kids workshop. There
were 10 different stations for the small groups of children to rotate around. One
activity was to ride a bike around a course. It had stop signs, some cones and
even a ramp. In another activity we learnt about survival in the bush and how
to build a bivouac. The other activities we did during the morning were dog
safety, firearms safety, beach safety, fire safety, what to do in an earthquake,
how to check a helmet, and we even did one about how your brain works and how
to relax. Most people don’t realise how important these keeping ourselves safe
tips are but if we remember what we did here it could truly save a life one day.
A cool morning greeted all of the
brave students who were participating in the annual hockey tournament on 5 July. It was held on the second last day of term two. Teams from St Mary’s, Tokoiti,
Waihola, the Catlins and Clutha Valley came over to challenge Milton Primary School.
M.P.S had six teams entered but none of them made the finals. Some
children got hurt in the games but they kept
playing and we all had to work together to get goals and try to stop the other
team from scoring. In the end the teams from the Catlins and Clutha Valley were in the final
for first and second place and the team from the Catlins won. We loved having the students from the high school reffing us. It
was a long and hard day but we all thought it was definitely a lot of fun!
The Life Education bus came to MiltonPrimary school
recently. In the senior classes, Pip and Harold, the puppet giraffe, were teaching
us about cyber safety. We learnt about the importance of keeping our personal
information safe and private and remembering that once we post something on the
internet we have lost ownership of it. We discussed the importance of friends
and that, not only is it important to have good friends, it is important for us
to be a good friend to others and protect their privacy online as well as our
own. We were reminded of what we learnt last year about keeping our behaviour
“above the line” because the things that we say and do have a large impact on
our personal reputation.
We all had fun in the Life Education bus and we
look forward to it returning again next year!!! J
This year we have a new sports activator named Shea. He has been teaching us the
skills that we need to play hockey. First we played games to help us warm up. Some of the activities we have done help us to practise keeping our eyes on the ball and ball control. We learnt how to do short dribbling and long dribbling. Next we worked in pairs and practised passing the ball to each other and counting how many times we could do that
successfully. We learnt how to
hold a hockey stick properly and some of the rules of hockey. All of us enjoyed the
sessions and are looking forward to the sports activator’s next visit.
